SHILLONG, Jan 15: What political parties promise in their poll manifesto hardly gets implemented especially when it comes to the issue of women empowerment.
Women in Meghalaya continue to face series of challenges be it education, leadership positions, basic healthcare, high teenage pregnancy, high MMR and even access to safe drinking water but the MDA Government in its tenure has taken multiple interventions which have led to a significant reduction in MMR and increase in the number of institutional deliveries.
Meghalaya being a matrilineal society, it is often perceived that that women enjoy greater autonomy than their opposite counter parts in the state when it comes to livelihood, managing financial decisions and women are independent and self-reliant when it comes to livelihood.
Women who constitute over 50% of the population of the state are often subjected to various level of exploitation, severe poverty and lack of basic healthcare and in many cases, they also become the sole wage earner as their spouses succumbs to addictions.
The NPP-led government, while realizing the challenges faced by women in the state, has stressed on the need to tackle gender-based discriminations through transformative solutions which is possible only if women are considered equal participants in the development process rather than passive beneficiaries.
Based on the opinion that change can only be brought with greater participation of women in all spheres of development and financial autonomy, the state government focused on the SHG movement in order to uplift the economic condition of rural women.
With deeper intervention from the local communities and consistent effort of the government, the SHG movement gained much momentum and the government despite facing the COVID challenge was able to mobilise and support more than 4.2 lakh women by forming 43,000 SHGs, a seven-fold increase in the number of SHGs formed in last 4 years.
These SHGs have been provided with grants to nurture their own entrepreneurial ventures such as access to small loans for opening of small shops, extending their garden kitchen, buying threads for their looms etc.
As Meghalaya is a hilly state with limited access to banking facility, people especially women in rural areas were not getting much benefit out of the central and state schemes and people had to travel long distances in towns to open their bank accounts.
It is said that the central government’s Jan Dhan Yojana have not reached many far flung places and several citizens are still deprived of the benefits of the scheme and to address this challenge, the state government initiated banking correspondents (BC) model to take banks to the far flung and inaccessible areas.
Over 1,000 women BCs have been deployed across the state to provide banking facilities to the population in remote hamlets across the state.
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma, recently spoke about the initiative and stated that economic prosperity of the state can be achieved only with greater participation of the women community.
Sangma observed that effective grassroots governance can address many challenges being faced by women and keeping this in mind, the government took a decision to reserve 50% seats for women in village employment councils (VEC).
The move will not only empower women but ensure all the necessary schemes are implemented in the right manner.
Meghalaya has a difficult topography and there are many areas in the state where women have to walk miles to fetch water for their daily needs and as many sources/streams are located at a remote place, women often find this a daunting challenge.
Studies have found that, this exercise has led to huge school dropout especially for girls. Aiming to address these challenges, the government accorded top priority to ensure that tap water connection reaches every household.
As many as 2.8 lakh household in the state have been provided with functional tap water connection in the last 5 years.
As far as the health sector is concerned, maternal death has been a major challenge for one with many mothers losing their lives during childbirth due to lack of access to healthcare centres.
The NPP-led government resorted to a technology-based solution to address the issue by introducing the MOTHER app.
This app monitors the stages of pregnancy for women and facilitates health workers to monitor the progress of the mother besides providing requisite interventions including medicine, high risk cases etc., to the mothers.
Coupled with this app, the government also set up transit homes and transit vehicle in many remote areas for expecting mothers in order to provide them with better medical facilities.
The intervention has not only resulted in lower maternal death but has also increased institutional delivery of children in Meghalaya.
More than 2.2 lakh mothers have already benefitted through this intervention and the MMR in Meghalaya has reduced significantly while institutional delivery has increased to 61% from 46% in the last 4 years.
The attempts by the state government have bought about a transformational change in the lives of the women in Meghalaya. The CM’s vision of “leave no one behind” in the march towards progress has brought about quality healthcare, financial inclusion, economic prosperity and leadership in governance for the women in the state.
